With a PoD starting in the 14th century challenge is to make the Doge of Veince
the most powerful head of state in the world at the start of 1797 (date of dissolution)
AHC: Wank Venice
- Thread starter GlobalHumanism
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With a PoD starting in the 14th century challenge is to make the Doge of Veince
the most powerful head of state in the world at the start of 1797 (date of dissolution)
Having a King of France or Spain elected Doge is the easy way out, of course, but that isn't too helpful, I guess. What's really needed is to prevent those destructive wars against the Ottomans, but even that isn't nearly good enough. At a minimum, you'd need Venetian control of all of Italy, but even that seems barely possible.
Well check out https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-city-of-water-a-venetian-tl-on-hiatus.338593/
It's getting there... Eventually.
A Venice unified Italy that has a massive colonial/trade empire. Certainly not a likely scenario.
It would require that Venetians recognize the inhabitants of the Stato de Tera and the Stato de Mar the right of citizenship in the Republic. It would be something more momentous (and much more hard to be accepted by Venetians) than the grant of Roman citizenship to the provinces.
The thing is, the discovery of the new world kinda... broke Venice. Before, it had a nigh monopoly on things in the Ottoman Empire and outside of Europe in general. With the Americas discovered, they suddenly had to deal with an influx of goods that in all reality they could not keep up with.
You'd need to have the Americas only be seen as some cold, dangerous land (say, Columbus never comes back and then the next party lands in Canada during winter) that is only traded with, along with far earlier colonization of the Cape and access to India (preferably by Venice), which is... very unlikely. Or you'd need massive, Spain level colonies in the New World by Venice, which is next to impossible.
Best they can do is unify most of Italy, take over a lot of Turkish land, and become Emperor. They'd be a superpower no doubt but they won't be untouchable
You'd need to have the Americas only be seen as some cold, dangerous land (say, Columbus never comes back and then the next party lands in Canada during winter) that is only traded with, along with far earlier colonization of the Cape and access to India (preferably by Venice), which is... very unlikely. Or you'd need massive, Spain level colonies in the New World by Venice, which is next to impossible.
Best they can do is unify most of Italy, take over a lot of Turkish land, and become Emperor. They'd be a superpower no doubt but they won't be untouchable
Originally they'd loose a lot of trade now that the Turks are telling everybody not to trade with them. Eventually, though, as Venice pushes east, trade will open back up as borders are reestablished (along with the fact that, while not in most places, in quite a few places the Turks aren't exactly seen in the best light since for a while they were basically conquering everybody), and eventually, especially if they remain close to the pope instead of fighting him a good bit per OTL, there will be decent Christianization of the lands. Anyway, assuming that the Venetians attack when they still owned Cyprus and Crete (I.e. before Turkish Unification), they'd probably be able to get Constantinople (I know it was Byzantine but with this kind of expansion it wouldn't take a lot for them to go "oops, you mean you aren't Turks? Sorry. Still mine though.") and even control of the Bosphorus. Then it's a matter of pushing east before Timur pushes west.
Overall, what could happen is for one, stronger Timurids and Malmuks since the Ottomans are gone, so the Timurids can expand into the smaller Turkish tribes and the Mamluks can focus on, say, North Africa. Anything beyond that to the west though depends on who controls the Straight of Gibraltar. To the East, the Venetians would have to walk a type-rope since pushing too far or too fast would mean that they'd have a rebellious population to deal with, and too slow too little means that they'd miss opportunities or even have another Empire on their doorstep.
Becoming Emperor means that the loss of HRE Italian states would have to be avoided and Austria and Bohemia would have to be usurped, which is a whole different animal.
That's simply not true, Northern Italy stagnated economically IOTL but the per capita wealth was still high into the 17th century; rivalled only by the Lower Countries. It was only the 100 years after the industrial revolution that it declined relatively. Of the two pillars of mechanized production in the 18th century the idea of organizing labour into factories came from India and the original mechanized textile looms were from Northern Italy, they were competitive even this late.
The notion of decline was relative; the Po Valley cities were still rich but their neighbouring kingdoms finally got around to centralizing and mobilizing their vast resources starting from the 15th century. It was a matter of scale, not quality.
Absolutely, the Venetian Senate was incredibly insulated and social classes were enforced rigoriously throughout the city (which is rather odd for a city with so many immigrants). Venetian administration outside the city was poor at best, their record was one of long-term low-level revolts. Success breeds complacency, by the time the Venetians got around to reform they were already surrounded by consolidated and powerful nation-states.
The best time for the Turk was 1402, when Timur came close to destroying the Ottomans and its royal line but the Venetians and Genoese helped them escape across the strait. (They preferred to deal with the Turks vs an unknown conquerer)
The best time for Po Valley unification was sometime in the 14-15th century at the end of the Guelphs and Ghibellines wars. During this time the French were pre-occupied with the 100 Years War, Imperial power suffered from dynastic and decentralizing troubles, Castile and Aragon has as of yet to form a union, Aragon itself was still recovering from the Black Death, the Turks were not consolidated in the Balkan and Egypt yet, the Mamluks were still recovering from the plagues, the Papacy distracted and weakened by a schism, and Hungry still strong, decentralized, and feuding with Austria.
As for Timurids, they were the last great Khans and much like the khans relied on martial power and family ties to uphold their rule. They will fall apart (as they did IOTL) to internal strife when the next dynastic struggles comes about. Martial power and fear are poor substitutes for an administrative bureaucracy and a proper succession system. What is worrying is some state like the Safavids, that actually got around to a competent government with gunpowder that can defend itself against nomads.
Much like the English, the Alps provides a great deal of protection for any state that holds the Po Valley, such a state will be naval-focused for trade and defense.
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All true, but the critical point is that Northern Italy was a fighting ground for two centuries (say from the descent of Charles VIII to the war of Spanish succession), and even if Venice was able to survive the wars of the early 16th century almost intact she was never again able to play at the table of the powers as the Venetians had done for centuries. To avoid this it would be necessary to have a POD at least by the end of 14th century: in any case access to either the Americas (which is very, very hard for Venice) or to India (more possible but still difficult) would be necessary by the end of 15th century.
The administration of the Serenissima was not so bad, at least on the Italian mainland and in Dalmazia (Crete and Cyprus were not well treated for sure). I would not put all the blame on the patrician class either, at least in the opposition to reform and the insularity: the lower classes had no political power but they still kept (and jealously defended) some of the ancient rights, and they were generally as insular and conservative as the patricians. The insularity of the Venetians had been traditionally a strength, and had insured at least a political life less subject to open factionalism when compared to other city states. However when it came the time to confront larger foes the incapacity of expanding the social even before the political substratum of the republic proved to be an insurmountable handicap. Venice never managed to find a solution to this problem, or most likely never recognized this as a problem. Even when Daniele Manin resurrected the republic for a mere 18 months, it still was only a republic for Venetians in Venice.